contributions

Plans by U.S. firms to trim payrolls surge, as hiring plans fall, employment firm says.
By Mark Gongloff
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The number of job cuts planned by U.S. employers rose in July, while hiring announcements fell for the second straight month, an outplacement firm said Tuesday.
The report came just days before the government’s critical gauges of unemployment and job growth in July, but did little to clarify how strong those measures would be.
U.S. businesses announced (…)

A threat to democracy
by George Monbiot
If we have learned anything over the past 18 months it is this: that the first rule of politics - power must never be trusted - still applies. The government will neither regulate itself nor be regulated by the institutions which surround it. Parliament chose to believe a string of obvious lies. The media repeated them, the civil service let them pass, the judiciary endorsed them. The answer to the age-old political question - who guards the (…)

By Bill Van Auken
With the declaration of "code orange" terror alerts in New York City, Washington, DC, and Newark, New Jersey, the Bush administration has set the stage for a national election in which government-inspired fear will be a principal tool in a campaign to coerce American voters.
Monday saw the deployment of black-uniformed paramilitary police armed with assault rifles outside the stock exchange and other major financial centers in New York and neighboring Newark, as well as (…)

by Ronnie Dugger
On November 2 millions of Americans will cast their votes for President in computerized voting systems that can be rigged by corporate or local-election insiders. Some 98 million citizens, five out of every six of the roughly 115 million who will go to the polls, will consign their votes into computers that unidentified computer programmers, working in the main for four private corporations and the officials of 10,500 election jurisdictions, could program to invisibly (…)

By DEBORA REY
The death toll from a supermarket blaze soared by more than 100 to reach 464 Tuesday, as a security guard told investigators he was ordered to lock the building’s doors to prevent theft just after the fire began.
Dozens of families were still searching for lost loved ones as investigators questioned the store’s owners, manager and security guards over reports that doors were locked, trapping shoppers inside during Sunday’s fire, the worst disaster in decades in this (…)

By Josh Frank
The Green Party of the United States will have a lot of fractures to mend after November’s election. With every passing day the party that used to represent the heart and soul of progressive causes, has gone weak in the knees, and fallen right on its boneless ass.
By now we all know that the Greens failed to endorse Ralph Nader for president at their convention in Milwaukee Wisconsin last June, and instead picked lawyer David Cobb as their candidate of choice. Cobb is not (…)

Irreplaceable historical sites and religious artefacts are being destroyed by the US-led occupation forces, says Iraq’s interim culture minister.
Sites including Babylon, one of the world’s most renowned archaeological treasures, are being damaged by the occupation forces, according to minister Mufid al-Jazairi.
The minister also said on Sunday the US-led forces needed to leave the area as soon as possible to avoid further destruction.
Heavy equipment, helicopters and other machinery (…)

The US administration admits that new warnings of attacks on American cities were based on information gathered by al-Qaeda up to four years ago.
Security was tightened around US financial institutions earlier this week after raids in Pakistan recovered documents reportedly naming them.
Homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said some of the information recovered was collected in 2000/2001.
But she said some may have been updated "as recently as January of this year."
On Sunday, (…)

More than 5,000 Indian drivers and other workers are reportedly being held by the US soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait to ferry arms and ration trucks.
by RAJESH DEOL
DH NEWS SERVICE CHANDIGARH:
If the Iraqi terrorists don’t get you, the US army or the Kuwaiti transport companies will. That is the state of affairs in Iraq according to two truck drivers from Punjab, Harnek Singh and Lakhwinder Singh, who managed to flee back home after escaping from the clutches of an Iraqi militant group. (…)

Past work experience:
Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn’t find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after he sold all his stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to Chicago.
With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas. Accomplishments:
Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and (…)